


for you are with me

by sapphicish



Series: hell or high water [4]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, lilith breaks the theme of this series (Eating All Of Mary's Food) by feeding mary for a change, this is a very complicated relationship!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-26
Updated: 2020-02-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:47:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22904953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphicish/pseuds/sapphicish
Summary: “I don't know what I can do. I don't have...anything. Why me?”“Your faith,” Lilith said softly, directing Mary's eyes to the cross hanging above the hearth, “is all I need. And—your charity.”
Relationships: Mary Wardwell | Madam Satan | Lilith & Original Mary Wardwell
Series: hell or high water [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1338499
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	for you are with me

**Author's Note:**

> oh we're BACK
> 
> this assumes that s3 took place over a longer period of time than it actually did (including lilith being on the throne for longer than she was) because...fuck cramped timelines! give these traumatized characters some space and time to talk!
> 
> this whole fic started because i thought “well MY fanon lilith would not have to disguise herself for MY fanon mary to gladly welcome her in and offer sanctuary and snacks” and sometimes that's just a call i have to answer

“Give me sanctuary,” Lilith said on the doorstep of the cottage, long enough after her last visit that Mary was almost as surprised by her sudden appearance as she was by the demand. Lilith hadn't visited for some time, and that wasn't odd, not really, but it was odd that she had not even crept into Mary's dreams, keeping her from a nightmare, or contacted her through a distant little voice in her head, a voice that only ever asked about her as if it truly cared. 

“What,” Mary said stupidly, but still stumbled back a step or two to let her in, because she couldn't imagine just leaving her out there, longer, to chill. It may have been spring, but it seemed to her that it was almost always freezing in Greendale, at least this far out by her cottage. Despite that, she realized once Lilith stepped inside that it wouldn't have mattered. Not to someone like _her,_ who Mary had learned over their shared time together was always cold to the touch and didn't actually care how hot or cool it was outside, inside, anywhere. Being perfectly unaffected by major temperature changes was a talent Mary really wished she herself had – but she had none of Lilith's talents.

She wondered when she had started thinking of that as a bad thing.

“Give me sanctuary,” Lilith said again, bringing her back to the present, her voice crisp and harsh. It was all more than she was used to, all just – _more,_ like something was wrong, like something was happening as they were speaking and Mary was one step behind, always, still trying to catch up. Lilith was taking off her coat, hanging it up, like she had done every other visit before now except now she was too...

 _Odd._ Hurried, like she'd never seen her before. Not calm and sure and wicked, not displaying all of the behavior Mary was unfortunately used to by now, and it was making her anxiety rise, a familiar little feeling in her chest like a thousand beating wings against her ribs. “I don't know what you're talking about,” Mary said, backing up a few steps. Lilith didn't follow her, which was something that eased her instinctive fear of the woman to a dull hum. “Sit down, please, I'll get you some cookies—“

“I don't want cookies,” Lilith snapped. The fire roared high behind her, illuminating her frame, and for a moment Mary saw something, with teeth and with eyes and with fury, and she flinched backwards so violently that her hip hit the table and sent a stray plate clattering to the floor.

“Don't—“ she said, at the same time Lilith said it, and then they both froze and stared at each other. She didn't see that thing anymore; she just saw that same agitation that bordered on panic. Her heart fluttered. She pulled out a chair and sank weakly into it, rubbing at her chest.

It was a mistake, doing that, trapping herself into stillness, because Lilith closed in and put a hand on her face, her palm clammy and frigid against her cheek. She leaned down, and down, and down, until she was kneeling before Mary—crouching, really, not set on her knees but instead balanced perfectly off the toes of her sharp heels. It was all still odd enough to make Mary's head spin, so much so that she almost missed what Lilith said next.

“Will you allow me to stay here, with you?” Her eyes were dark and desperate. Mary hadn't ever seen her like this – she hadn't thought it was possible. She had seen her in her nightmares, devouring people whole, jaw unhinged like a snake's; she had seen her standing at the foot of her bed when she woke up, had seen her eyes roll with exasperation when Mary screamed and pushed herself back against the headboard, pulling the sheets up further around her as some sort of defensive tactic. She had seen her bordering on gentle, when they talked by the fire about what Mary did or did not remember, what she dreamed of or what she didn't dream of.

“Why? What's wrong? Where have you been? Are you—are you all right?” It occurred to her, suddenly, that Lilith may have been hurt – somewhere, somehow, and though she looked over her closer she could see no signs of it, no blood or bruising or trauma. “Has someone hurt you?”

Lilith made a noise. It was a sharp, incredulous, ugly sort of sound that ended before it could flourish into a full laugh, and for a moment her grip tightened on Mary's chin. She envisaged, horribly, the way Lilith could rip her apart; and would, if she gave her the wrong answer, only she didn't even know what any of the right answers were at this moment in time, and...then it ended. Perhaps Lilith had seen it in her, the terror. Mary often tried so hard to mask it, during her earlier visits, but now in the rush of things...she thought she should be allowed to express a little fear.

“No,” Lilith said, “but He will, if He finds me.”

“I—“ Mary stammered for a moment, distracted by the sensation of those fingers on her face, her jaw, creeping like cold little spiders. She felt too warm in comparison, flushed, the heat of the fire she'd lit minutes before Lilith had knocked on her door reaching deep and far. Something also distracting was the _he_ Lilith mentioned, and finally she managed— “...He who?”

Lilith gave her a long, pointed look.

“...Oh,” Mary said, her pulse faint and fluttering in her throat. _Let me out,_ she thought it might be screaming. _Let us out._ Or maybe that was just her own voice in her own head, feeling trapped again. “I don't know what I can do. I don't have...anything. Why me?”

“Your faith,” Lilith said softly, directing Mary's eyes to the cross hanging above the hearth, “is all I need. And—your charity.”

The part of Mary that could not truly align itself with Lilith, with the existence of Lilith, with the knowledge that she was a thing and a creature and a woman who existed in the same time and moment and place as Mary did, with her exact same face though Mary always wanted to desperately beg for it to be stripped away, wanted to say _no._ Like that: no, quick and sharp, and see what would happen. Nothing, she was guessing. What power did she have against Lilith? What power would she ever have against anything, or anyone, ever? It was not something she had ever possessed.

“What about the—“ _Spellmans,_ she thought, but stopped short. Witches. She didn't know them as such, but Lilith did. Lilith knew all, and had shared these tidbits of information over her visits, had once or twice disappeared without word just because of something the Spellmans had done. She never specified which one, when she explained later, but Mary had the gut feeling that it was always Sabrina, and it made her feel a little sick to think about what that girl might be caught up in, so she tried not to think about it at all. She did anyway, day and night, worrying for a child who didn't seem to need it all that much.

Lilith smiled a bitter smile, clearly catching on to her train of thought. She always did. “They have their own troubles to deal with,” she said, her hand falling slowly from Mary's face. She found that she almost missed the contact – it left her feeling strangely bereft and reeling, too warm with not enough of a chill to balance it out. “I came to you first, Mary. I thought of you first.” 

Mary realized that it was meant to be a compliment, a blessing, a gift. Lilith was depending on that, in her desperation. She sat there and let it sink in, searching inside herself. She didn't feel so flattered, not really; the anxiety and the concern was still there, but the fear had mostly gone. It helped that Lilith was no longer touching her, no longer so close—even if a small part of her longed for that again.

She couldn't help it – and it was always an unpleasant realization, that.

“Okay,” Mary said, because she'd always been planning to, really, even despite her fear, despite everything else. “Yes. Of course. Anything I can do.” Something in her head asked, _why are you doing this,_ and Mary answered, _because I can, and she's asking._

It didn't feel like some solemn magical vow of protection to her, but the way Lilith responded to it made it seem like it was. She shuddered, then breathed out with a very clear, very real relief, the darkness in her eyes ebbing, and then she was standing, and moving, and Mary was so dazed by it all that she didn't realize what was happening, not until Lilith brought back two cups of tea and a plate piled high with almond cookies. Mary took one, feeling numb, and took a sip of her tea, which was scalding. She nearly choked on it, on the way it burned her throat, but instead she took another and another, until it wasn't so bad anymore. Lilith watched her all the while, the frantic fire in her eyes calming as she did.

It was at once comforting and strange and strange because it was comforting, and strange because she wanted to reach over and hold Lilith's hand and tell her _it's all right. It will be all right. Don't be scared._ And that was strange because shouldn't she be scared? Shouldn't Mary be the one in fear, being reassured and soothed? She was afraid, always afraid; she read books and was afraid and drove and was afraid and looked at knives and was afraid and looked at her fireplace and was afraid and she slept and she was afraid and she taught children and she was afraid and she remembered and forgot and remembered again and yet here, now, she wanted to hold Lilith's hand.

And Lilith didn't want to hold hers, or else she would have – she had done, before, at some point. Mary remembered that. Vaguely.

“Am I going to die?” Mary asked suddenly, once she'd gone through three cookies and two and a half cups of tea. She was beginning to feel drowsy – that was what stress did to her. Mostly, that was what Lilith did to her. She felt already dead, sometimes, like she was just a ghost walking around breathing with somebody else's lungs, wondering what the person who had been in her body before was doing, wondering what she was wearing, wondering how she was. But to think of dying now – ( _again again again,_ remember, and she did, she did remember, a little, only it was already fading again, and then — then — gone) – that was what made it feel hard and terrible.

Lilith looked slightly startled, then slightly amused, then – nothing, her face falling to a horrible sort of blank slate. “No,” she said, “but I might.”

“I don't want that to happen, either,” Mary said softly, hoping that Lilith knew she meant it, somehow. No matter what Lilith had done to her in the past, even the things she didn't know about yet, even the things she might never know about.

Lilith smiled, and it didn't reach her eyes, because it never did. “I know.”

“Will you answer all of my questions in the morning?” Mary asked. She had many of them – right now, right here, she couldn't even begin to ask any of them. There were _too_ many, making her mind feel too full, making her feel ill and anxious and shaky. In the morning, she hoped it would be better, that things would be clearer, that it would make more _sense,_ somehow.

“I will,” Lilith said, and Mary suddenly understood that they felt the same about this – they were both tired and sick, and tired and sick of talking, and of being there, and of having to be there.

“Would you like me to set up the guest room for you, then?” 

“Yes,” Lilith said, Mary's own eyes staring back at her. She always found that eerie, but now she found it slightly soothing, too, in a way. It always went back and forth – changed on a whim. Just some minutes ago she had found it terrifying, the way they looked with all of Lilith's rage festering within.

Mary cleared her throat, realizing that she'd been staring for far too long. She felt a rush of heat come to her face, drowning out the same sensation under her collar. She stood fast, her hip bumping the edge of the table and making the dishes shake. “Yes. Then. All right. I think I'll be retiring soon myself, all that tea made me a little sleepy...is there anything else you'd like?”

She wanted, with a desperate surge in her chest, for Lilith to look at her, because the woman hadn't looked at her since she started speaking and the feeling of it was at once terrifying and grounding, having that quiet and knowing gaze set upon her. 

Just when she thought it wouldn't happen, Lilith glanced away from the fire, and back to her. “No,” she said, and then like an afterthought— “Keep the windows locked, and don't go out in the morning.”

Mary swallowed. She'd already thought of both those things. She always kept her doors and windows locked, always. She checked them all twice, sometimes three times before bed, because it felt like something would crawl through and eat her alive if she didn't. And if Lilith was going to be staying in her cottage for however long she was staying, she was fully intending to call in sick first thing in the morning.

She left to arrange a bed for Lilith without saying a word, knowing very well that she didn't need to speak at all. Lilith knew every decision she made, every thought and step. She'd already made that perfectly clear in the past. Several times.

While folding the sheets and fluffing the pillows, she wondered if the bed would even be used, or if Lilith didn't care to sleep, didn't need to or want to. She wondered what the room would look like the next day, if it would smell like Lilith, like smoke and brimstone and the dark. She wondered if Lilith would answer any of her many questions tomorrow, and eat the breakfast she would make for the both of them. The answer to the latter was yes, if the way she behaved around food continued – like she was always hungry, always, for more and more and more in a way that Mary couldn't help but pity. She was never hungry, herself. She couldn't imagine what it was like, anymore, to truly _hunger._ Too often it was the exact opposite, a hard and almost confrontational lack of appetite.

She could imagine that Lilith had starved for so long that she didn't know what else there was, even though she had boasted in the past about eating whole armies, about how in Hell there were endless rotting feasts, like that was a good thing and not something that should have made her weep.

No one who ate like Lilith did was satisfied with what she'd been given, anyway, Mary knew that. She didn't say it, and tried not to think about it, but she knew it.

Lilith was sitting by the fireplace when she emerged. Mary stood there in the doorway for a while, looking at that silhouette, those long-fingered hands gripping a cup of tea, the longer legs crossed over each other. She didn't think that body was breathing, couldn't see from here, but it was unnerving. Lilith hardly moved in all the minutes Mary found herself rooted to the floor, gazing in at a strange and inexplicable creature.

From this angle, and in this poor lighting, she looked like someone else entirely. She _was_ someone else entirely, so – but – it looked like not Mary's body. Mary didn't have those wild, glossy curls; she usually just had unmanageable frizz. And she didn't have those beautiful painted nails; she kept them bare. Sometimes she bit them, when she was particularly stressed. And she didn't think she had legs like that. She didn't know, not really – she never wore dresses like that, and of course she always wore stockings, and the heels of her shoes were never quite that high...

“Goodnight, Mary,” Lilith said.

Mary's heart froze in her chest for one long, painful moment, and then just when she thought she was having a heart attack induced by the sudden shock of fear alone, that rhythm evened out and she was able to breathe again. 

“Goodnight,” she stammered, caught off guard. “Lilith.”

“Sweet dreams.” Lilith's voice was grimly amused – a joke, because they both knew better than to think Mary would ever have sweet dreams again.

Mary went to her room and closed the door, and she changed and pulled the pins from her hair, massaging the ache from her scalp. She looked at herself in the mirror, not very surprised by the dark circles under her eyes and the weariness in the set of her mouth. She'd looked like that for a while now – deeply, terribly, irrevocably tired. She checked the locks on her window, twice, then climbed into bed and pulled the blankets tight around her and stared at the ceiling until her eyes ached from trying to keep them open.

It was inevitable that she would give in to the urge to sit up and turn the lamp on, and that was exactly what she did after five minutes of fighting that urge. It made her feel unreasonably immature – young, childish, like she was ten and afraid of the dark again, only she never had been, not until Lilith.

All the same, it worked. The glow illuminated the warm, cozy room from corner to corner, and Mary was able to close her eyes when she laid down again. She curled up on her side, hugged a pillow, and prayed for herself to whoever might have been listening, someone that _wasn't_ Lilith.

The first prayer didn't work the way she wanted it to, didn't lull her into a peaceful quiet so that she could sleep, so Mary prayed for Lilith instead, for an end to the unnatural and out-of-place terror she had seen in her eyes, for her safety even though it may not have been right or deserved. It made her feel better, made her feel less selfish, made something feel righted inside of her. Lilith was always the last thing she thought of before bed, and the first thing she thought of in the morning, but she had never prayed to her before, and she'd certainly never prayed _for_ her. It had never been necessary.

She hoped that it never would be again.

 _Amen,_ she finished, just like that. She listened to the silence of her cottage, then, straining her ears to hear any movement from Lilith, or a knock on the door, or even the slightest creak of the floorboards that would send her into a fit of anxiety she might not recover from for hours.

There was nothing.

Eventually, that became peaceful rather than a source of concern, and Mary drifted off to sleep.

She dreamed not of the usual things, like horrific hellscapes where skeletal hounds with fire for eyes fought over scraps of hot, bloody meat crawling with maggots in front of her throne of skulls, nor of a deep-seated chill and ache and emptiness in her chest that nothing would ever fill.

Instead, she dreamed of warmth and sunlight, and a hand in her own, and the hand had red nails and a deceptively soft touch, and when she looked up the sky was bright blue, just like their eyes.

They walked like that, Mary hand-in-hand with a queen of Hell who never let go of her, whose very real-seeming warmth filled her up and made her smile, and they traveled through a valley of shadow only to emerge unscathed on the other side.

And then she woke up, free of the fear that had haunted her the night before, and went to make breakfast for her new guest.

**Author's Note:**

> this absolutely will not turn out to be some longer thing with more chapters but what i envisage in my head is that satan shows up a couple days later and mary is like Absolutely Not, Demon, and slams the door on his face. that's it.


End file.
